Monday, June 09, 2008

When I saw that one of my favorite card-buying sites had a pack of these listed on their web sites, I was VERY excited! These are the "other" Team Set cards. I say that because there are Team Set cards with a red foil Wahoo logo on them, and then there are these with the red foil "triangle" at the bottom. I read somewhere recently that there an estimated 100 cases of these cards... That's it - 100 cases. These have been so hard to find that I have been gobbling up packs and boxes of them whenever I can lay my hands on them! There are 5 cards in each pack with a chance of pulling a silver "Platinum" foil card or an even less of a chance to pull a gold foil "Premier" card. I have a whole set of the "Platinum" versions and am only missing a couple of the "Premier" version. I have spent many, many hours and many, many dollars trying to complete this set.The first card out of the pack is a Brian Giles' rookie card. The cards themselves have the player's name in all lowercase letters at the top, a white border around the picture, and the red "Pinnacle" design with the word "Score" embossed in it. At the bottom of the card in the red stripe is the team name embossed in the foil.The next card out of the pack is Sandy Alomar, Jr. He is sporting the '95 AL Champs patch and some serious shades. In the reflection of the shades, you can see the photographer who appears to be standing on the pitcher's mound. You might want a magnifying glass or some serious digital photo software to grasp it...Next up, we have Julio Franco who is either just about to toss his helmet aside after a rather non-productive round of batting practice OR he is showing you that, indeed, there is nothing in the hat...OH, YEAH! Rockin'! I pulled a Brian Giles Platinum Team card! You can see the weird "waves" the foil makes on the card. Other differences include the "Pinnacle" device is now reduced to line art to let the foil show through, and the logo has been changed such that "Cleveland" bends around the point. "Indians" is not flanked by a couple red lines. I already have this card (since I have this whole sub-set), but it so happens that Giles was the last Platinum card I needed before completing the set... Now, if I could only pull a needed Premier card from one of the packs I bought....Finally, we have Charles Nagy. Rather than show the front, I decided to show you the back of the card. Notice there is "gold" lettering that reads "Team Collection" on these cards. Notice the wrapper, however, says "Collect all TEAM SET Cards." You can see where there is great confusion with these 'special' sets - you see, the red-wahoo set is called the "Team Set" version...UPDATE - After opening 23 packs (all that store had, I bought them ALL!), I scored (pun intended) a duplicate Jack McDowell Premier, a Kenny Lofton Platinum, Mark Carreon Platinum, Sandy Alomar Jr Platinum, and a Jack McDowell Platinum, plus of course a slew of the 'regular' issue.

I am ALWAYS looking for these, so if you know where to, well, SCORE some, please let me know! The key is the "Collect all Team Set Cards" on the wrapper and box, and the fact there are only 5 cards per pack (I believe the other style has 6 cards per pack).